Like the undoubted majority of tonight’s audience, given that they only played four gigs in the UK and the last was in 1995, I have long accepted that I will never see Kyuss, especially in light of Josh Homme’s unequivocal comments regarding the (non-) possibility of a reunion. So this is as close as we’re going to get – their vocalist John Garcia plus a more-than-capable backing band performing a set of Kyuss songs. The Ballroom is full. Scratch that – the Ballroom is FUUUULLLL!

Full of leather clad tattooed longhairs in various stages of drunkenness packed in as tightly as legally allowed and ready to go apeshit. As the first chords of the set opener strike, that’s pretty much what happens. But there’s something bugging me. On one hand the band sounds really good. The sounds are all just about perfect and they play the songs very closely to the original recorded versions. It’s just that there are a few times when they miss out the slightest touch – a string bend or drum beat – that you know is essential to the song. That reminds you that if this was the real Kyuss up there, the songs would be a little more twisted and warped – maybe faster, maybe slower, maybe jammed out a little longer – but those touches would be spot on. Oddly enough, at other shows on this tour other ex-members – Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri - have joined Garcia onstage, which makes it slightly disappointing that they didn’t make it for the whole shebang – if they had, I reckon these niggles would have been rendered irrelevant.

Garcia himself, at least, is no less than the genuine article, and what minor grumbles I have about the music are soothed by his outstanding performance. Even if he has piled on the pounds and now looks rather like the IT Crowd’s Matt Berry – so much I keep expecting him to suddenly boom “I can’t have you thinking about sexy sex all the time, Jehn!” Which is distracting – not a lot, but some. Such silliness aside, and despite my minor reservations, they power through a formidable 90 + minute set that contains every Kyuss song that matters, to greater and greater levels of acclaim. Even Orange Goblin’s Ben Ward gets up to join in at one point, which actually really works nicely. So I may never get to see Kyuss actually at it; even as I hear Josh going through a succession of less-worthy if more successful bands and it hurts a little more each time I realise he’s still not going to revisit probably his greatest one; but in a small way, tonight helped heal that pain.

EDDIE THOMAS